Pope Pius XI celebrating the Feast of Corpus Christi in Rome

FOR THOSE Catholics who aspire, despite their many and obvious failings, to be simple, direct and docile in their faith and who, through the unmerited grace of God, the use of reason and this effort at total submission, realize that the papal chair is currently vacant and no true pope sits in Rome, the words of the French monk Dom Prosper Guéranger relating to today’s Feast of Corpus Christi, which celebrates the true and miraculous Presence of Christ in the Sacrament of the Eucharist, a belief which modern materialists and pantheists, like their forerunners in ancient times, find barbaric and repugnant, may serve as a stern warning about the possibility of obtaining the Eucharist at this time.

Aspiring to be simple and submissive despite my many failings and sins, I consider Guéranger’s words on the indispensable bond between the Vicar of Christ and the Eucharist cause for grave doubt about the Traditionalist Chapels which rightly disavow the false pope in Rome while still dispensing what they claim to be the lawful and valid Eucharist. Where there is doubt, we must not act.

The fact that these chapels are not united in their beliefs, especially as to who should receive and who can lawfully consecrate the Blessed Sacrament, is another cause for grave doubt. Catholics are expected to make gruelingly difficult decisions on jurisdictional matters before they can approach the altar at some of these chapels. The faith is not enough; one must be a genius in ecclesiastical law and spend hours poring through reams of documents about the psychological status of certain deceased bishops to know what is right.

Then there are the rogue “independent” chapels that simply take one and all, as if there ever was a thing called “independence” in the Catholic Church. As long as you like the look of Traditional Catholicism, you’re in. Appearances count most. All this smacks of Protestant disunity, which leads inevitably to two very unfortunate and opposing calamities: fanaticism and indifference.

As the prophetic Guéranger put it in the nineteenth century, “Christ in his Sacrament, and Christ in his Vicar, is in reality but the one same Rock that bears the building which is erected upon it; the one sole Head, visible in his representative, his Vicar, and invisible in his own substance, in the Sacrament.”

I recommend Guéranger’s The Liturgical Year, Volume X, “Tuesday after Trinity Sunday” reading in full. Here are some pertinent excerpts:

The history of the blessed Eucharist is one with that of the Church herself: the liturgical usages, which have varied in the celebration of the most august of all the Sacraments, have followed the great social phases of the Christian world. This was a necessity; for the Eucharist is the vital center here below, whither everything in the Church converges; it is the inner bond which unites together that society of which Christ is the head, the society whereby he is to reign over the nations, which are to be his inheritance. Union with Peter, the Vicar of Christ, must always be the indispensable condition, the external mark, of the union of the members with the invisible Head; but supported, in an ineffable manner, on the Rock which bears the Church, the divine Mystery, wherein Christ gives himself to each one of his servants, must ever be the essential mystery of union; and as such, the center and the bond of the great Catholic communion. Let us, today, get a clear notion of this fundamental truth, on which was based the very formation of the Church at her commencement; and let us consider the influence it exercised on the forms of eucharistic worship during the first twelve centuries. Tomorrow, we will continue the subject by examining how subsequent loss of fervor, and heresy, and social degeneracy, induced the Church to gradually modify these forms, which, after all, are but accidental; they were admirably adapted to the favored times they had served, but would scarcely suit the changed circumstances and requirements of later generations of the Church’s children.

[….]

It was indeed a mystery; but the Faithful, the Initiated, understood it; for it had been thus explained to them by the Apostle: We, being many, are one bread, one body, all that partake of one Bread.

This text is admirably commented by St. Augustine in a sermon he preached to the Neophytes a few hours after their Baptism: “I remember,” says he, “the promise I made of explaining to you who have been baptized, the mystery of the Lord’s Table, which you now see, and of which you were made partakers in the night just past… That Bread which you see on the Altar, that Bread which has been sanctified by the word of God, is the Body of Christ: that Chalice. or rather. what that Chalice contains. which has been sanctified by the word of God. is the Blood of Christ. By these did Christ our Lord will to give us his Body and his Blood, which he shed for us, unto the remission of our sins. If you have properly received them, you are what you have received, for the Apostle says: We, being many, are one bread, one body, Yes, it was thus that he expounded the sacrament of the Table of the Lord: We, being many, are one bread, one body. We are, by this Bread, instructed how we are to love unity. Was this Bread made out of one grain? Were there not many grains of wheat?

[…]

The doctrine of the Eucharist here laid down by the great Bishop of Hippo is identical with that given by all the Fathers. In Gaul, St. Hilary of Poitiers, and St. Cesarius of Arles; in Italy, St. Gaudentius of Brescia; at Antioch and Constantinople, St. John Chrysostom; at Alexandria, St. Cyril;—all had the same way of putting this dogma of faith before their people. Christ is not divided: the Head and the members, the Word and his Church are inseparably one in the unity of the mystery instituted for the very purpose of producing that unity. And this unanimous teaching of the Fathers, who lived in the golden age of Christian eloquence, was reproduced by Paschasius Radbert in the 9^th Century, by Rupert in the 12^th, and by William of Auvergne in the beginning of the 13^th.

It would be too long to give the names, and still more to quote passages, in testimony of how all the Churches for the first twelve Centuries looked upon the holy Eucharist in this same way,—that is, as instituted for the purpose of union. If we follow this traditional teaching back to the apostolic source whence it originated, we shall find St. Cyprian, in the age of Persecution, speaking to his people upon the union between the divine Head and his members, which is the necessary result of the holy Sacrament; he shows this, not only by the nature of bread and wine, the essential elements for the consecration of the mysteries, but likewise by the mingling of water with the wine in the eucharistic cup: the water, he says, signifies the faithful people; the wine denotes the Blood of Christ; their union in the chalice—union necessary for the integrity of the Sacrifice—union the most complete and inseparable—expresses the indissoluble alliance between Christ and his Church, which consummates the Sacrament. The same St. Cyprian shows that the Unity of the Church by the Chair of Peter, which is the subject of one of his finest treatises, is divinely established on the sacred Mysteries; he speaks enthusiastically of the multitude of believers, the Christian unanimity being held together in the bonds of a firm and indivisible charity by the Sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ. Christ in his Sacrament, and Christ in his Vicar, is in reality but the one same Rock that bears the building which is erected upon it; the one sole Head, visible in his representative, his Vicar, and invisible in his own substance, in the Sacrament.

This sentiment of union, as the result of the Eucharist, was rooted in the soul of the early Church; her very mission was to bring about the union of all the children of God that were dispersed throughout the world; and when the violence of her enemies obliged her to provide her children with some secret sign, whereby they might recognize each other and not be recognized by pagans or persecutors or blasphemers, she gave them the mysterious icthus, the fish, which was the sacred symbol of the Eucharist. The letters which form the greek word for fish (icthus) are the initials of a formula in the same language, which gives this sentence: Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour.

We have no pope and therefore we have no Eucharist. What other conclusion can we make?

In order to be truly Catholic, we must pray the Holy Mass at home and perform acts of Spiritual Communion and perfect contrition. The faith is for the simple too.  The Church still exists in all who hold the faith entire, waiting for God to end this interregnum or prepare us for the coming Judgment. We cannot approach the sacraments when in doubt, theologians tell us. Who are we, beneficiaries of such immense treasures, to complain?

The most holy Eucharist contains within itself the whole plan of God with reference to this world of ours; it shows how all previous ages have been gradually developing the divine intentions, which were formed by infinite love, and by that same love, carried out to the end, yea, to the furthest extremity here below, that is, to Itself; for the Eucharist is the crowning of all the antecedent acts done by God in favor of his creatures; the Eucharist implies them all; it explains all.

— Dom Prosper Guéranger, “The Feast of Corpus Christi“

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